


Not my Beast, but Certainly a Beauty

by anamatics



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Break Up, F/F, Falling In Love, Female Friendship, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby is another beast, but Belle likes to think she's something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not my Beast, but Certainly a Beauty

When Red woke up, she was still Ruby. For that, Red was grateful, because Ruby was good and kind. Not at all like the darker nature that Red knew lurked just beneath the surface of her psyche.

When she walked amongst Ruby's things she realized that they were her things as well. There were little touches everywhere that Red loved and Ruby had also enjoyed. There were two sets of corresponding memories for each object, each sketch and each clumsily-worded poem.

The wording was clumsy and dissimilar to what Red had grown accustomed to during her childhood longing for an adventure. She had read the great epics of her world, learned the songs of the heroes and had attempted to learn how to play a lute before deciding that being a bard was not for her.

Ruby's writing was different, full of angst and heartbreak. Stories within stories, double meanings and bait-and-switches so clever that they made Red's head hurt. Red spent hours reading though Ruby's writings. The girl was prolific, documenting her life with a brevity of wit that made Red smile.

The worst part about this whole mess were the two sets of memories. Red had memories of two different versions of people bouncing around inside her skull and she hated it.

James had said that they were both. He was the weak-willed shadow of a man and the prince of old. They were their best and worst qualities drawn out into one perfect being.

(Red rewrote his speech later that evening, outlining what points he should have made, letters cutting angry black scars across the crisp white paper she'd found in Ruby's desk. She didn't know why she'd done it, but it had to be done. She wasn't satisfied with what James had had to say.)

That night, Red decided that Ruby was easier than Red.

Ruby, after all, had never killed anyone.

-

She was drawn to the moon, even in a place where her curse could not exist. Her curse was the sort of thing that required the inherent magic of their land to be fully effective, twisting her body and mutilating her mind. They'd figured that out almost as soon as they'd regained their collective consciousness.

For an object she was raised to fear, it was beautiful hanging low across the harbor. The man across its face trapped forever in a silent scream. Before, she'd never even bothered to look at it. Twenty-eight years to never know she'd feared it. It was a blessing Ruby had not known she'd needed, and one that she sorely missed.

Strange how these things went.

Ruby's breath caught the first time she'd caught sight of it, without her cloak and with nowhere to go. The little sliver of moonlight crept across her bedroom towards her. She backed away, her body flush against the wall. She would not change, not now.

Her body wanted the moon, longed for it. Her mind would not forgive her for what she wanted, her body pulling away yet drawing forward.

The moon, always the moon.

She wanted to escape it.

Still it drew her in like a long-lost lover.

In the end, she did not change, but it felt like a close thing. The pain just under her skin of her bones threatening to realign themselves was there and definitely a threat. She had to find a solution and fast.

Her hands struck harsh lines across her body, writing in the moonlight as she attempted to resist the urges.

(She went to Gold for wolfsbane the next day; he wanted nothing to do with her and sent her to the fallen queen - who had none to offer. Ruby hated that she felt trapped in a land that was supposedly without magic. The emotion overcame her, welling up deep within her and forcing her down onto Regina's front steps. She cried for want of the two people closest to her. Snow from one life, Emma from the other. She needed them now more than she's ever needed them, because even a man of infinite answers and a witch with nothing left to lose could not help her.

It was in that moment, lost and alone in her thoughts, that Ruby realized how few people truly understood her. She had been alone her entire life in this curse. Her mother dead, her grandmother was hardened with age and unsympathetic to her cause. Never had there been a woman in her life that could provide the answers that she so desperately wanted.

'Stop sniffling all over my stoop,' Came the voice of the mayor a moment later, handing her a tissue and pulling her back into the house. 'You'll attract attention.'

Regina's house was warm and inviting. Ruby didn't dare breathe too deeply in that space, the air crackled with repressed magic. She had been to the evil queen's lair before, once, with Snow. Or rather, just before they'd discovered that Snow was cursed. For what seemed like the zillionth time (Snow did have a knack at it that impressed even the most cursed - Red - among them).

'I don't want to kill anyone,' Ruby said, biting at her lip and not meeting Regina's gaze.

'I know,' Regina replied, her eyes sad. 'No one does.'

Ruby wanted to say that they're all guilty, but thought better of it as Regina handed her a twisted root produced from a perfectly pressed suit jacket pocket and explained her to eat it before wolfstime comes.

'For the fur,' she added with a mockingly raised eyebrow.

Ruby didn't dare ask and really didn’t want to know.)

-

Ruby had never felt particularly compelled to protect someone before she met Belle French. She wasn't sure if it was the pretty curls or the friendly smile - or even those enticing eyes, but something about Belle gave Ruby more than a moment's pause.

From careful information gathering (and a few helpful consultations of Henry's book when he wasn't paying attention) Ruby gathered that Belle had had her share of overprotective people in her life. Ruby understood the feeling of never being free to be your own person very well. She hated every moment of it, back before this whole mess got started, and she hated it now.

The beast lurked just below her consciousness, seeking out its moment to strike when she was at her most vulnerable.

Still, she felt it was her duty to be Belle's knight since no one else seemed to treat her as a person. Ruby had resolved to let the beast have its protective wish the moment she'd met Belle. It seemed natural, wonderful even, to protect such a mind, after all.

Ruby hated that none of the people in Belle's life saw her as anything other than a pretty shiny thing that they could use when needed.

Belle was so much more than that.

Ruby was not sure if it was the beast inside of her or something else that kept her drawn into whatever web it was that Belle French was weaving. She would stand on the other side of the counter and smile at Belle, watch as Belle ate and drank. She would explain things to her as best she could, taking Red's memories and combining them with the bewitching words that Ruby would dare allow to grace a page.

Because Belle loved books, loved the written word and the stories of this world.

"I was in place," Belle confessed one evening as Ruby cleaned glasses and Belle nursed the Shipyard seasonal that Ruby had pressed into her hands when she'd come in an hour earlier and stated that she needed a drink. "Before... All I did was read."

Ruby smiled at that, because she's been able to see that in Belle since the beginning. She's warm and friendly and (Ruby won't admit this to anyone) but she smells really, really good. Like a place that Ruby knows she must visit and linger at, her body growing accustomed to the taste of Belle in the air.

And because she's a little self-deprecating and angry at the queen for that particular caveat of the curse, "All I seemed to do before was write - and sleep around."

Belle raised an amused eyebrow at that and shook her head. "You hardly look the type."

-

Rumpel - Gold gave her the library, and she flourished. Ruby, who had been roped into watching Henry most of the time because James really wasn't that great at parenting, liked to spend her afternoons there.

She was an avid reader, much like Belle. Their tastes did not align, but Ruby was used to people not understanding why a girl, let alone anyone under the physical age of fifty, would be drawn to the works of the philosophers of old. The world in her head was constantly at odds with how she found herself able to present. The words of old dead men seemed to help calm her.

"You should let me read something you've written," Belle commented one evening as Ruby checked Henry's math homework, pen and little black book full of half-written poems forgotten on the table before her. Belle didn't make a grab for the book. To do so would be to invade Ruby's privacy, and Ruby wondered if she's finally heard tell of what Ruby really is.

She marked an answer incorrect and handed the paper back to Henry. He tilted his head to the side and almost adorably scratched at his head as he puzzled through where it was that he'd gone wrong. "PEMDAS," Ruby pointed out as Belle covered her mouth to hide a grin.

"Ahhhhhh," Henry said, and got to work.

Ruby turned back to Belle, her hair glowing almost heavenly in the late afternoon sun that was streaming through the windows she and Charming spent a good porting of the week removing boards from. Ruby's nostrils flared and she leaned in, breathing in the scent of Belle. "I could let you read them," she drawled, leaning back so as to get away from that intoxicating smell. "But then I'd have to kill you."

"Ruby!" Belle laughed, swatting at Ruby's arm as a grin erupted across her face. "Oops - suppose I should be quieter, this is a library after all."

"I suppose."

-

They came to the diner on Saturday afternoons together, both ordering hamburgers and sitting in a booth far removed from the general traffic of the main diner floor. Belle wore a flower in her hair and a pretty dress, Rumpelstiltskin had on his swarmy, Sunday best. Ruby hated every minute of those dates.

She could not allow herself to entertain the possibility for longer than the few briefest of seconds, because Belle really did love him. Ruby had always had a sense about it, and Red knew that it came from the beast, rather than the girl's ability to spy a love-connection. People who were in love smelled different, like sex and power and a commitment that Ruby desperately feared.

She did not want that for Belle. Belle deserved better.

Her hands were shaking as she cleared away their dishes, but her best smile was firmly in place as she walked away. She would not let the green-eyed monster rule her. No, never again.

She'd been down that path before, and it had not worked out well for her last time, either.

"Really, girl," Mr. Gold commented to her one such afternoon as he settled up the bill with her at the register. "You could at least make an effort."

"What do you mean," Ruby demanded, punching buttons on the register moodily as she added up the bill. She hated every moment of these Saturday afternoons because they had become a torment to her. Belle was there, right there, smelling of summer and flowers. Belle was there and she could smell _him_ on her, his cologne and the scent of magic always clinging to her body as she leaned against him.

God, she hated him.

He leaned in, gold-capped tooth visible as his lips curled away from his teeth. Ruby felt her hackles rise, the hair on the back of her neck standing straight up. "You're moving in on what is _mine_ , dearie. Best stay away, I'd hate to have to put you down." the snarl was there, as was the threat, bright and potent against Gold's thin lips.

Ruby handed him eleven dollars and thirty two cents exactly, as well as his receipt. He didn't tip, never had. She set her palms squarely on the counter in front of her and hissed, "She is not a thing to be owned, Rumpelstiltskin."

The man clapped his hands together, change clattering against his palms. "Don't you know it," He muttered darkly. "You stay away from her."

It was in that moment, before anything else, that Ruby realized that she had to get him away from Belle and fast. Before Belle was lost forever.

-

"I want to get Belle away from Rumpelstiltskin," Ruby said in lieu of a greeting, pushing her way past the surprised-looking former mayor of their little town. She clasped her hands behind her back, spinning on a booted toe, and planted her feet firmly in the middle of the foyer.

The once queen and certainly still just a little evil witch closed the door and lazily spun the lock in it. The dead-bolt slid into place with a satisfying clock and Ruby wondered if this was when she finally got what was coming to her from the evil queen.

"I've tried that," came Regina's voice after a moment of contemplation. She stepped away from the door and into the foyer as well. It was strange, but Ruby had never felt particular compelled to hate the queen. She had hated what she'd done to Snow, yes, because that was what good and sane people did. There was still that sense of kinship, however, that Ruby could not face. She blamed the fact that Regina had taken away her curse when it would have been so easy to burden Ruby here in this brave new world with it still. For the first time in her life, Ruby could remember actually living. As much as she wanted to hate the queen for it, she knew that she could not.

Regina stood at the door to her study and rested her hand on the polished metal handle. "It didn't work last time, she still came to this world. I had intended to leave her there."

Not quite following, Ruby's brow furrowed and she inclined her head to one side. "What do you mean, intended to leave her there."

"Our world, as I'm sure your lovely prince has told you, is still quite real, dear," Regina looked down at her finger nails, flicking an invisible bit of dirt off of her dress before straightening. "So don't you worry about Belle, I'm sure that it'll sort itself out."

"He's no good for her," Ruby protested.

The former mayor folded her arms across her chest. With a cool and judgmental smile that certainly did not reach her eyes, she explained, "Then you'll just have to make her see that."

"How?"

She was greeted with a dismissive look, and Ruby felt the air escape her lips in defeat.

"She's a beauty, you're a beast. Figure it out."

-

The inherent problem of jealousy was that Ruby had nowhere to channel her jealousy. She couldn't tell Henry, because he was ten. And that would be mean. She couldn't tell David because he was a prince and not really much of a talker as evidenced by his motivational speeches. Snow had been a talker.

Snow had been a lot of things.

Thinking about Snow and the many things that she had been over the course of her life had Ruby in the library, sitting across from Belle, drinking a cup of tea. "I just... I miss them. I miss them both."

Belle's fingers ticked off the names of the people who were missing like a newspaper man typing in the names of the dead. They weren't dead, Ruby was sure of that. Snow didn't die easy and Emma was a fighter. "Your friend Snow - who goes by both Mary and Margaret, and Emma Swan." She lowered her hands and stared at them. "It's strange to think that the simple loss of two people would have you so lonely."

Maybe it was the tea, or maybe it was something else that compelled Ruby to say it, "I've always been lonely."

"Are you now?" A kind smile hidden behind a palm resting on thoughtful chin and Ruby felt herself fall deeper. She couldn't keep this up - she wasn't that good an actress.

She took a sip of tea, because it was something that she could do without talking about it for at least a few seconds longer.

"It's hard to be lonely when you're here," she confessed. She bit her tongue so hard that it bled inside her mouth, the coppery taste filling her stomach with bile. She could not show that she was embarrassed; it would not end well for any of them. She was not the sort of being that deserved such feelings as it was. "I miss having friends."

Belle seemed to contemplate Ruby's words for a long moment, turning them over and weighing them like a maid at market. Ruby couldn't help herself and leaned forward, ever so slightly. She wanted to hear Belle's judgment, her final absolution for this whole mess. "I would like to be..." Belle trailed off, looking at Ruby with the sort of searching look that made Ruby's hackles rise and the wolf want to come out.

She still hadn't told Belle about her curse or her fears of what might happen should the queen run out of that root or the magic here to shift even the slightest bit. She would become the monster, it would rule her - and she would go straight for Belle.

Like Peter, but far, far worse.

"There's something I should tell you," Ruby looked down at her hands and clenched them into shaking fists. "I don't know if he's told you or not."

"Told me what?" Belle asked.

Ruby exhaled and took one final calming breath before straightening. She couldn't unclench her fists, try as she might. They were shaking and uncomfortable and she was full of fear, so much terrible fear. "I have a condition. It's not quite the same here as it was ... back home, but it's still there," she looked away. "They have a fancy-sounding name for it here, lycanthropy."

"You're a wolf," Belle's eyes were wide but her lips still held that gentle smile that made Ruby want to hum contentedly and curl up against her. She would protect her from the wolf inside her, from the beast of the man that she so obviously loved. From everyone and everything.

Ruby's cheeks burned then, because there was no denying it. "I am," was all she said, and that was enough.

-

By the light of the moon she could barely stand to look at now, Ruby wrote poetry with hopes that it would one day fall upon receptive ears. She had no other option, pining as all good bards do, for a love that could never be.

I saw him today, hand in yours.  
His body leaning against you,  
pushing forward, darkening a doorway with his lust.

I watched you with him today.  
Your arms around his neck, your lips against his.

In a moment of contentment, I could not watch.

With a frustrated sigh, Ruby slammed her notebook shut and tossed it towards the end of her bed. This was going nowhere fast.

-

"Get outta your head, girl," Her grandmother growled as Ruby bussed tables during the breakfast rush. It had been close to two weeks since her confession to Belle and she could not stop thinking about how Belle had looked upon her confession. She had seen her with him after that, leaning in close, kissing more openly. It was strange and more than a little bit disturbing, honestly. He wasn't that much older than her in this life, but to know who he really was, it was enough to make Ruby's stomach turn.

And then they'd had a fight.

A very loud, very public, very heated fight.

Henry was a master eavesdropper and had filled Ruby in on all the details one afternoon as Ruby walked him to the diner after school. He'd started to go see Regina on set days after school, to ask questions about the realm that she was now no longer forced to hide from him. Ruby secretly thought it was a good thing, because she'd grown up without a mother. Henry had two who loved him dearly, and he more stubborn about it than both of them combined.

"She doesn't like that he won't be honest with her," Henry slumped down on the park bench they were sitting on. The weather was starting to grow as warm as Maine ever got, and Henry's sweater was bunched up and shoved into his backpack. Ruby didn't want to take off her jacket, even her in the brightest of days. It was the one thing that she found herself pushing back into Red with. She wanted to remain more covered, more protected, than Ruby had ever felt the need to be during her time in Storybrooke.

"No one likes that," Ruby mused and Henry nodded in agreement. They'd both had their fair share of that in their lives, it seemed.

Henry kicked his feet forward; his sneakers were untied and muddy. He'd been playing with some of the kids in his class when she'd picked him up from school. It was strange to see him interact with children his own age. He was a perpetual outsider, just like Ruby, just like most of the people in this god-forsaken town it seemed.

"Why does he lie to her?" Henry's face was screwed up into an expression of confusion and Ruby felt the words die in her throat. She had no idea how to explain what it was like to be in love with a person. He was ten and far too young for such burdens.  
Ruby thought for a moment before she responded. "You know the line from that movie, 'You always hurt the ones you love?'" At Henry's nod she continued. "It's a lot like that. There are certain things that people - grown up people - will do in the name of love. In his case, it's lying to Belle because he doesn't want to hurt her."

"How do you know?" Henry asked, because he was a curious little kid and that was definitely the sort of thing he would ask.

She met his questioning gaze with sad eyes. "Because that's what I would do too." Ruby shook her head, "There's a lot of things about this world - any world really - that aren't right or good. He loves her enough to want to lie to her about who he is, and that's not okay. That’s why she's mad at him."

"Is that why you're staying away from her?"

Ruby looked at this little boy who saw through damn near everyone effortlessly, and shook her head. "I will not be that person."

-

They had another fight a week later, this one more private but still somewhat public. This one was a lot more final seeming than the first one. Rumpelstiltskin had looked particularly put-out afterwards, limping home and scowling bad-temperedly at anyone who dared cross his path.

Belle had ended up knocking on Ruby's bedroom door at the Bed and Breakfast, her eyes still red and puffy. Ruby opened the door, expecting to see her grandmother, still in her leggings and an oversized t-shirt, half-way ready for bed. "Gra-Oh!" she took a step back, hands reaching, fumbling really, for the robe she'd tossed over the back of her desk chair. "Hi," she said weakly.

"Could I stay here tonight?" Belle asked, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. She had a bag slung over one shoulder and stepped into the room almost hesitantly as Ruby moved aside to allow her entrance. "I didn't want to go home."

Because she maybe was a little bit of a bitch, Ruby couldn't help but saying, "You think he'll show up at your place."

Belle set her bag on the end of Ruby's bed and tucked her hands into her pockets, staring up at the poster of Marilyn Monroe that Ruby had had on her wall for as long as she could remember. "Do you think I'm insane, for getting involved with him?"

Ruby didn't really have an answer for that, biting at her lip and staring up at the poster as well. "I think that he came to you during a time in your life when you needed him."

"And now I don't," Belle's voice trailed off and she slumped onto the end of Ruby's bed. She rested her head in her hands. "I wish I did, but I don't."

Every person had one great love in their world, and Ruby’s was dead. Belle's had forced her away from himself because he was too afraid of being in love. Or whatever, Ruby didn't pretend to understand Rumpelstiltskin.

"Do you want a shower?" Ruby asked a moment later. She didn't want to add that she smelled like him, his scent was clinging to her body. It was corrupting her and making it difficult for Ruby to be around her. The beast inside her did not like it.

Belle nodded, picking her bag up once more. "Please," she said, and Ruby felt her knees go weak.

She would not be a rebound.

"Just down the hall, towels are in the closet to the right."

As Belle vanished down the hallway, Ruby let out a slow, shuddering breath. She slumped against the wall of her bedroom, jostling one of the decorative masks she had hung up there. It was the one shaped like a wolf and Ruby pulled it off of its thumbtack and flipped it over in her hands. The snarling teeth and haunted eyes of her own her own personal hell stared back at her, while the instrument of her torture had adventures in her bathroom just down the hall.

"I can't do this," she whispered, setting the mask back into its place and running a hand through her hair. "I cannot fucking do this."

After Belle's shower it got easier. Ruby was able to get her to eat something and then they settled down on her bed to watch _The Lion King,_ as Belle and never seen it. They watched the first film and were starting on the sequel, before Belle dozed off and Ruby shifted as much as she dared to pull the blanket that usually decorated the bottom of her bed over them. It was a strange feeling, to lie next to her and to listen to the steady rhythm of her breathing. The wolf wanted to protect this girl so desperately that Ruby did not know quite how to react. She wanted Belle, she truly did, but not like this.

She couldn't be the nice guy, or the girl next door or whatever this world's stereotypes were for people who swooped in so soon after heartbreak.

It wasn't good and it wasn't right.

Belle was warm and soft and snuggled close in her sleep. Ruby bit her lip and counted as many sheep and floating evil queens as she could before sleep finally claimed her.

-

Ruby had no idea how to help Belle move past what had happened to her. She didn't really even know how to ask Belle to tell her the story of the beast that she'd somehow fallen in love with.

A pattern was started, Belle would try to be alone for a day or two, and then she would go to see him again. To ask him what went wrong. When he had no answers for her, she would go to the diner and order a glass of iced tea and talk Ruby though some complicated problem in whatever book she was reading at the time. She never mentioned the man she'd fallen in love with, and Ruby never asked about him.

Still, the beast knew that Belle was upset. Ruby could feel it ebb and flow within her, her mind keyed in to Belle's moods almost effortlessly.

One night, not long after the first time that they'd had their second fight, Belle came to the diner in tears, and Ruby pulled her into the back room where the washing machines were located. Ruby thought of Ashley and how she'd spent long hours crying in this room, when she'd been pregnant and Sean hadn't been able to get his head far enough out of his own ass to see that they were perfect for each other. It seemed like there was a lot of crying that went on in this room.

"Shhh," she whispered, her finger tips swiping at Belle's wet cheeks, smoothing away tears. "What happened?"

Belle hiccupped and Ruby pulled her into as tight a hug as she dared. Ruby couldn't stand to see anyone cry, Belle worst of all.

"I-I... I asked him why he lied to me," Belle said into Ruby's shoulder. Her fingers were tangled up in the back of Ruby's shirt, pulling it into twisted little patterns that Ruby would later document with as flowing words as possible. Ruby hummed at the back of her throat, trying to soothe her friend.

"Why did he?" Ruby asked.

Belle pulled away, her eyes closed as she swiped at her cheeks. "He said that I never mattered," she got the words out, but as she did so, her voice choked again and Ruby pulled her back into the hug. Belle felt good there, right, and Ruby would protect her from everything. "I was a means to an end, I kept his humanity there."

"Bastard," Ruby muttered, and Belle gave a little bark of sad laughter as they rocked in place. The sound of the dinner rush long-lost to the pair of them as Ruby tried to calm Belle down and express with barely-found words and gestures that could have no further meaning than friendship. Ruby could not swoop in, could not be a knight in shining armor. It wasn't right, and she wouldn't do it. She had to allow Belle time to heal.

Later that night, Ruby walked Belle back to the library. She had to make sure that there weren't any skeevy old men lurking in the corners of the library, because Ruby honestly wouldn't put it past him. "Thank you," Belle said, fingers reaching out to brush against Ruby’s upper arm. "I've never had someone be there for me like you."

"I'm not a knight," Ruby pointed out, holding the door open for Belle as they headed indoors. "But I'll protect you with the honor of one."

-

It was Ashley - Ella - who noticed it first. Ruby had met up with her on one of the few nights that Sean was home from work and could spell her a brief reprieve from child-care duties. They walked down First Street, turning to head towards the town's most decent bar. "Who's gotten to your head, Red?" Ashley asked as Ruby paused to stare down the road to where the library was. A single light was burning in the back window where Belle's apartment was and Ruby longed to go to her and ask her to come out with them.

She'd made a promise to herself, however, that she would not do that. She couldn't do that to Belle or to herself. She did not want to have that strange sort of co-dependent relationship that Belle had had with Rumpelstiltskin. More specifically, however, she wanted to give Belle a chance to get her head on straight and actually think about who she was and what she wanted in this life. They had been given a second chance at a life that allowed them far more freedom then they'd ever had before. It was a small town, but the idea of indoor plumbing alone was enough to make Ruby not want to get too much in the way of whatever it was that was keeping them there. Privies should be a thing of the past.

Ruby shook her head, pushing back a stray lock behind her ear, "No one."

Ashley shot Ruby the most withering of are-you-fucking-kidding-me glares, and folded her arms across her chest. "Don't lie to me," she said in a stern voice that almost sounded like Ruby's grandmother, which was a scary enough thought in and of itself.

They started to walk again, Ruby's hands plunged deep into her pockets as she contemplated how best to explain the situation. The bar was still a good block or two away. "Have I ever told you about my true love?"

There was no answer for that, because only Snow and her grandmother knew about Peter, and they certainly weren't going to tell the story.

The pain of it was enough even now, nearly thirty years later, that Ruby can barely stomach it. She remembered Peter in those chains, remembered how scared she was that he would turn into a wolf only to wake up with Snow and her grandmother peering down at her and her cloak firmly tied around her neck. "I ate him," she kicked at a pebble and watched as it bounced across the world. "At wolfstime, Snow and I were convinced that he was the wolf that had been terrorizing my village. Turns out," she gave a little sad sort of chuckle, "that we had it all backwards."

"Red-" Ashley began, her hand touching Ruby's shoulder.

Ruby flinched away from the touch. " _Ruby_ ," she hissed. "I ... I don't want to be Red."

They continued on to the bar in silence, Ashley's hand never leaving the crook of Ruby's arm. It took Ruby absolutely wiping the floor with anyone who challenged her at pool and several shots before she sat down next to Ashley and contemplated the harsh truth of the matter. "Ash, have you met Belle French?"

"Moe's kid?" Ashley reached forward and picked up her shot glass. She drained the contents of it quickly and swiped at her lips with the back of her hand before setting the glass down with the deliberate slowness of someone who knew that whatever came out next wasn't going to be good. "I've met her once, at the library."

The real problem was that Ruby wasn’t sure if it was merely an attraction or something else entirely. She knew that the wolf in her liked how Belle smelled, and liked how soft she was and how comfortable and good it felt to curl protectively around her. She knew that she liked Belle’s smile and her easy laugh. She liked how smart Belle was and how much she’d read about the world that Ruby still felt as though she was just coming to discover. Ruby wasn’t sure when the want ended and the attraction began.

All she knew was that once was not going to be enough.

“I…” Ruby stared down at the shot in her hands. “The wolf likes her, I think I might too.” So she was avoiding being completely honest. So what.

Ashley’s eyebrows shot up, because while Ruby had never particular cared _who_ she slept with, Ashley was probably the straightest person ever and never thought about any other possibilities ever. “But what about,” her voice dropped and she whispered the name. “Rumpelstiltskin?”

Ruby shrugged, because she'd asked herself the same question over and over again. She did not want to risk his wrath and Ruby did not think that she could stomach it if Belle were to go back to him after all that he'd done to her. She'd told Ruby stories, on those late nights watching crappy cartoons. She'd painted a picture of how she'd come to end up in his employ, how she'd fallen in love with him. How coming to her senses here had made her realize that he was really not what she needed.

"He's an adult, he can handle it."

-

He wasn't an adult though, he was an immortal beast who hadn't had someone say 'no' to him in a very long time. Ruby knew that it was not going to end well from the beginning. She bit her tongue and tried to stand tall and proud as he positively oozed into the diner not long after Ashley had posed that complicated conundrum of a question.

What would Rumpelstilskin do when he found out just how deeply Ruby felt for Belle? The wolf's hackles rose as he made his way through the diner, his cane clicking on the floor with each approaching step. Ruby watched him come, drying her hands on a dish rag and leaning against the counter. She felt calm, collected, almost unafraid.

Maybe she wasn’t afraid. Maybe that was the whole gist of it. She had gotten over her fear of him so effortlessly that she was able to look past his bravado and see a man as scared as she was. Scared to be in love, scared of a whole hell of a lot of things that didn’t make much sense. Their world had been connected to this one, but it was not the same.

"You stay away from her," he began without preamble, his finger jabbing into Ruby's chest as he drew level with her. "She is not yours to have."

Ruby's fingers closed around Mr. Gold's accusatory ones and she twisted, pushing him away from her and taking a step backwards. She dropped his hand almost as quickly as she'd touched it, and stood with her hands on her hips. Her voice came out a low hiss and Ruby took one deep breath before she spoke. "I am not going to have this conversation here."

"By all means, dearie," he gestured towards the back room, and Ruby gave a small shrug before turning to leave this very public venue. The diner was a center of gossip and intrigue in the town, and even as this conversation had started before it had begun, Ruby knew that the room would be abuzz with chatter before she’d even closed the door.

Still though, Gold’s gate fell heavily on the floor as the silent diner watched him follow her into the back room.

The back room was full of boxes and the one lonely dryer, something metallic rattling around inside of it as it rumbled out it's time. Ruby took what she could only are hope was a calming breath and turned to face him. "Look," she began, her voice not shaking at all. Maybe she wasn’t Ruby at all now, but rather Red.

She didn't want to be Red.

"What I do with Belle is none of your business," she explained slowly, picking the smallest words she could possibly think of. She had to make this as clear as possible. She did not know why she was not afraid. Maybe it was that in that moment, when he stared at her like a man defeated, that she realized he had completely lost his power. "You may think you have some sort of claim over her because at one point in one world you did - but this world doesn't work like that. You pushed her away. She left."

He looked at Ruby for a long moment, fingers bridged over his cane and shook his head. "She isn't yours, Red Riding Hood, she can never be yours." The malice in his voice was palpable, and Ruby felt herself flinch, just hearing how angry he sounded. He drew a long breath, and then turned to stare out the window. Ruby watched as his shoulder slumped in defeat, "I just don't think she can be mine either."

His hands were shaking as he stared down at them. Ruby bit her tongue and tried to keep herself from shaking. She knew that if she were to move, if she were to do anything other than stare him down and face out his wrath. He had no power here, no real magic.

Or so she prayed.

"Is-" he asked after a moment. "Is she happy?"

Truth be told, Ruby didn't know. She had never asked Belle how she was coping with the loss of one who could have been her true love, "She's trying," she said judiciously. "That's all she can do."

"I want you to stay away from her," he stepped forward, eyes narrowed and threatening. Ruby took a step backward, scowling at him. "Let her make up her own mind."

"She won't come back to you, Rumpelstiltskin," Ruby replied evenly. "You burned that bridge."

He didn't say anything then, because there was nothing left to say.

-

With the barest heat of Maine, the summer came. David and Regina had holed themselves up in the mayor's mansion with a spell book and a collection of strange magical supplies acquired for them by a man named Jefferson. They were attempting to reopen the portal that lead to their realm, to bring Emma and Snow back to them. It was honestly, when Ruby really thought about it, the strangest partnership that she'd ever seen. And David had helped Gold out with various unsavory things on more than one occasion.

Still, Ruby was glad, because she wanted Emma back. Emma was probably the only person in town who really understood what Ruby was going through. She was certainly the only other person in town who'd ever contemplated kissing another girl.

It wasn't... necessarily frowned upon in their kingdom. A happy ending was a happy ending, even if it came not as one might expect. Those stories, however, were never told. They were written out of the bard's lore long before the characters in those epics ever grew old and passed to the grey havens. Here, Ruby knew that what she wanted to do would be accepted by most.

The others could bite her if they dared.

On the summer equinox, Belle came to find Ruby at the diner, a basket slung over her arm. She was wearing a sundress and strappy sandals and a brilliant smile. "What can I do for you, Ms. Belle?" Ruby asked, leaning in far closer than was absolutely necessary. There was a countertop between them, and her grandmother's disapproving glare from behind the register.

Belle leaned in just as close, rising up on her tiptoes so that only Ruby could hear her proposal. Ruby cast a nervous glance around at the patrons, shifting so her shirtsleeve was not trailing in a sticky streak from a maple syrup bottle she'd just barely managed to bus back to the kitchen to be reheated. "I was wondering if you'd like to go up the hill with me?"

There was a hill that overlooked most of Storybrooke that reminded Ruby of a place back in their realm. It was a place for lovers, certainly not for two friends and what Ruby assumed was a picnic.

Ruby turned to look at her grandmother, who was giving her a severe look over her glasses. "It's pretty slow, I'll be fine with Marcus out back tonight," she smiled at Belle before adding to Ruby, "Go on, child, live a little."

They must have cut an odd picture, walking through Storybrooke, arm in arm. Belle was in the middle of reading _Pride and Prejudice_ , and was explaining in glorify-filled detail how she found the love story of Ms. Bennett and Mr. Darcy to be particularly counter-productive. Ruby hadn't read the book in years, but resolved to pull her copy down off the high shelf where she kept her books from her youth that she had never had in this world that night and start again.

The path up the hill was winding, twisting through tall Georgia Pines and lower-standing spruces. It was full of birdsong and as they climbed, Belle's hand slipped lower into Ruby's. There was a tune on Belle's lips, a melody from a movie that they'd watched a few days before. The one that supposedly told Belle's story.

"This is utter garbage," Belle had said after the first ten minutes of the movie. "Gaston wasn't like that at all, and he certainly wasn't that hairy."

Ruby had spent the next ten minutes with her fist shoved into her mouth trying to keep the shrieks of laughter to a minimum lest her grandmother wake up and throw them out of the Bed and Breakfast. Belle and leaned in close and whispered that she didn't even mind the wolves later, and Ruby's heart had soared.

"You say you hated that movie," Ruby commented, squeezing Belle's hand and pulling her up a low rock outcropping and onto the plateau that was almost perfect but not quite. It was not Firefly Hill, a place for lovers and for miracles. No, this was merely a lookout point where years ago there would be a guard tower, watching for Redcoats and the British. It was from here that the colonials would cut inland across the forests and mountains of Maine to move onto Montreal and Quebec, to strike a blow.

This was not a place for lovers.

Belle shrugged, setting the basket down. "The songs were catchy," she announced, pulling a blanket from the basket and spreading it a particularly bright patch of sun. She looked so pale in this light, so desperate to be out-of-doors and in the light. She deserved the light.

Ruby stood at the edge of the plateau, a steep rock face stretching down below her, a plunge she could willingly take. The tide was nearly high, and the sea-weed swayed underneath the water, tendrils stretching up to catch the sun. Ruby had tried to avoid nature in Storybrooke, because it brought her back to baser instincts that made her want to flee and hide from the moon forever. It was beautiful in this place that was not her home. She could see the sea, which she had never seen before through eyes that found it dull and boring.

She wrapped her arms around herself and turned to face Belle, questions on her lips and in her eyes. Ruby did not know what Belle was planning, or why they were here of all places. "Why am I here," she mused, collapsing cross-legged on a corner of the blanket and meeting Belle's eyes.

"I wanted to have a picnic," Belle replied, not entirely convincingly. She was shredding a napkin into perfect little rows of neat white lines, nervously setting them one on top of the other. Her gaze was fixed downwards, on her hands and their constant, repetitive motion. Rip, straighten, stack, rinse, repeat. Over and over again.

Ruby pushed herself forward, one knee digging into the ground as she moved towards Belle. Almost reverent fingers reached out to hook under Belle's chin and tilt her gaze upwards, to meet Ruby's own.

"I wanted a picnic with you," Belle breathed, her cheeks flushing a bright red in the sunlight. She looked so innocent in that moment, so completely uncorrupted by the forces that Ruby knew worked so hard to have her.

She was beautiful.

"Belle," Ruby breathed, and leaned forward to place the gentlest of kisses on her lips. It was soft and tender, and Ruby felt her lips quirk upwards as Belle sighed and reached out shaking hands to cup Ruby's cheeks.

Ruby had kissed many people in her life, but none had made her sing like that. It was a pure and beautiful reflection of something she could hardly put into words, and Belle was right there with her. Ruby's true love was dead, Belle's was probably puttering around in his shop cursing his rotten luck. This was a brave new world, and Ruby would have another chance.

As she pulled away, thumb brushing at Belle's kiss-swollen lips, Ruby smiled. "I would love to have a picnic with you," she whispered, eyes crinkling at the corners as she held out her hand to Belle. "You more than anyone else in the world."

-

It didn't get easier.

Kissing Belle was a drug and Ruby could not stop herself. They had been close before, but it was even closer now. Belle had become a near-constant figure in her life, lingering at the diner, waiting for Ruby to wrap things up.

Her grandmother pulled her aside one day with a kind smile and told Ruby that Belle was a keeper, unlike most of the other wastes of space that Ruby liked to date.

At the time, Ruby felt it was only proper that she be offended for each and every one of them. She put her hand on her chest and dramatically proclaimed, "Granny, you know that they're not _all_ bad."

Her grandmother had blown a raspberry at the back of her throat and had passed Ruby the month's rent. "See that Gold gets this on your way home - don't want to be late."

The moon hung low in the sky as Ruby met Belle right outside the door to the diner. It was warm for summer, and Ruby hadn't thought to bring a jacket. "Hey," she said with an easy smile. "I need to run an errand real quick, can I meet you at the Rabbit Hole?"

Belle stepped forward, finger trailing down the neckline of Ruby's shirt, fingering the necklace she'd found buried in her jewelry box that morning. Ruby felt her cheeks go hot and her breath come as quick as her heartbeat. She exhaled slowly, and watched as Belle rose up and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. "It's the first of the month," she whispered. "You have to go see him."

Ruby sighed and backed away, her feet fumbling on the large flat stones that made up the diner's patio. "If you want to come along," she began, her voice tentative because she really did not want Belle to come along. Whatever peace Rumpelstiltskin had settled on since Belle had realized there was nothing for her in that relationship was a fragile one. Ruby did not want to borrow his ire or his magical attention by parading Belle in front of him. "That's okay. But," she reached out and took Belle's hand. "I'd rather that you didn't."

It was the one thing that she could never deny Belle, and that was a choice. Her life had been full of others making choices for her. Ruby did not want to be that person. Belle could make decisions, she was smart, well-read and most importantly she was capable of making those decisions for herself.

Belle looked down at their joined hands. "I don't want you going in there alone," she said quietly. "You don't know him, what he's capable of."

The wolf rose within Ruby, spurned on by the moon and the tide, protective of what could someday be love. Her voice was barely above a growl when she spoke, "I know what he can do, Belle. I'd rather just drop off the rent and be done with it."

A compromise was offered then, Belle taking Ruby's hand and pulling her down the road towards Mr. Gold's shop. She would wait outside, Ruby would take care of the rent, and then they'd be on their way.

The light was on in the back of the store as Ruby squeezed Belle's hand one last time and pushed the door open. A bell tinkled overhead and Ruby double checked her watch to make sure that he'd still be there.

Ever since the curse had broken, they'd all been keeping odd hours, but sure as the clock ticked down the hour, Mr. Gold would collect rent on the first of the month. It was one thing that would never, ever change.

"I don't normally allow dogs in my shop," came the dry and humorless voice of the human-form of the trickster who had made this world. Henry had explained what his mother had told him of the curse and how it was cast when Ruby had first realized that there was a very real chance she could change at the full moon. Rumpelstilskin had written it, the queen had merely cast it, not fully knowing the consequences.

Ruby fumbled in her pocket and produced the roll of bills that was the diner's rent. "My grandmother wanted me to drop this off," she said, holding it out to him with her most pleasant of smiles. "And it's lucky for you that I am not a dog."

Cold and clammy fingers closed over the bills in Ruby's outstretched hand, crumpling them into a ball as he pulled them away. "Perhaps not," He mused, tucking the money into his pocket and leaning heavily on his cane. "But you certainly are a thief, aren't you dearie?"

She took a step backwards towards the door, and then another. Her jaw was set in a hard line as she met his accusatory gaze evenly. "I took nothing that was not freely offered," she hissed.

The bell on the door jingled as she yanked it open, his mocking laughter trailing after her as she slammed it shut. Ruby felt the anger and the rage of the wolf deep within her at that moment far more acutely than she had ever felt it before in Storybrooke. This is what she felt before a change came, her body threatening to twist itself and distort into something that could not be freely given.

"Ruby!" Belle's voice was like a haven. The beast inside of her calmed, her inner wolf howled a different sort of howl. Belle's hands were on her shoulders, pulling her away from the shop, towards home.

It was only later, when they were sitting on Ruby's bed, that Belle asked what Rumpelstiltskin had said.

"Am I a thief of hearts?" Ruby asked. She did not one to be one, she could not be one. She had done nothing, only braved falling in love again, with a beautiful creature more splendid and lovely than all the finery in all the lands.

Belle shook her head, fingers tangling up in Ruby's. "You do not take what is freely given," she reasoned, and pressed a kiss to Ruby's cheek.

-

"Are you ever going to let me read your writing?" Belle asked on afternoon as Ruby untied the digny from the dock and kicked them out into open water. They were exploring, careful of the boundries that were sure to exist if they went too far out into the ocean. Still, the harbor that surrounded the shore was calm and full of interesting coves and inlets that were just begging to be explored. It was mid-tide, going out. The full moon was set in a week's time, and the water retreated lower with every tide that passed.

Seals occasionally came to play in the seaweed here, and Ruby had promised Belle that they'd see one before the day was out. It might be an empty promise, but Ruby thought that Belle would understand if they, for whatever reason, couldn't find one.

She settled the oars into their locks and turned to face Belle. "I..." she bit her lip and gave the smallest of shrugs. It wasn't that she didn't want Belle to read them, most of the recent ones were about her anyway. They were more than that, deeply private and not the sort of thing that she shared with anyone. "I suppose I could," she said evenly. "They're a private thing, you know?"

Belle nodded, "I do."

The harbor set forth an infinite path for them to follow, and Ruby rowed steadily, eyes over Belle's shoulder towards the fast retreating shore.

She had never been particularly sure why she kept those details to herself. The writing was close to her, personal in the way her curse was. It was something that could not be put into words accurately, and Ruby did not want to risk anyone else knowing her true heart. She'd been hurt so many times before that it seemed like madness to dare try.

The oars dipped into the water and Belle leaned over the edge, trailing her fingers in the freezing water. "Does it ever warm up?" she asked as Ruby turned the boat towards a particular inlet.

Ruby shook her head, "Maine misses the Gulf Stream, the water's always really cold here." She glanced down into the water, glacial boulders and seaweed stretching upwards to the sun's light, a beautiful network of cold water sea life. She could see urchins and starfish dotting the rocks the rocks in the shallow water of the harbor. "It means that we get super awesome tide pools though."

"Which is where you're taking me?" Belle asked with a closed-off sort of smile, which Ruby returned easily. Belle was easy, she made things easy when Ruby's mind struggled so hard to complicate them.

It was easy to laugh then, "We'll find a lobster or something." She said it like she truly was from this place, the ending of the word morphing together into an -ah that sounded foreign on her lips.

It turned out that they found some crabs instead. Ruby had rolled up her pant legs and was wading through the slippery pool of water that the retreating tide had left. Her toes were freezing, but she'd promised to find Belle something interesting in this pool as she stood on a rock, her hand covering the wide smile that graced her features.

She was moving carefully, placing her feet so as to avoid getting cut on the muscles and urchins that dotted the floor of the pool. "Ah-ha!" Ruby shouted triumphantly as she bent and scooped up a small blue-grey fiddler crab. The tiny creature's claws unleashed upon her pointer finger, pinching as hard and as fast as they could, but Ruby was faster, clambering out of the water and dropping to one knee before Belle. "Your crab," she giggled.

Belle took the litter creature between two cradled palms and stared down at it. "You're quite a darling aren't you?" she asked it, holding it up at eye level as Ruby carefully plucked an urchin from the bottom of the pool as well. "We'll call you Sebastian."

"Careful," she said, as Belle tottered on unsteady feet and let the crab back into the pool. It scuttled away, a trail of angry bubbles in its wake. "I don't think he liked that."

Belle smoothed her dress underneath her and settled down beside Ruby on the rocky outcropping that sheltered this little cove from the harbor proper. "Sebastian is a good crab, he'd never get us purposefully hurt."

Ruby waved her hand dismissively, "Nah, just head over heels into the tide pool."

"That did seem like it was his plan," Belle mused, tapping her finger on her chin and leaning against Ruby. "Perhaps he needs a talking to."

The urchin in her hand had released tendrils and was attempting, oh so slowly, to flip itself over and move on with life.

Ruby turned to Belle then, her lips pressing against sun-warmed skin. "You are amazing," she breathed.

Turning, Belle leaned into Ruby's kiss, her arms wrapping around Ruby's neck. Here in the sunlight they could go on for hours and she would never have to fear the moon. No one could see them here; no one could know their tentative fumbling towards something Ruby still did not believe was real.

Her lips traced patterns down Belle's neck; Belle's hands pushed her back unto sun-bleached rock. Ruby lay there as Belle kissed her with a passion that Ruby had never experienced before, Belle a comforting weight above her.

They were exposed, gulls circling overhead, annoyed that their bombardment place was occupied by humans on the edge of their own reality. Their cries filled the skies as Belle's head dipped lower, her fingers playing with the low v-cut neck of Ruby's t-shirt.

"There's a song that I heard on the radio," Belle whispered into Ruby's ear. Her lips lingered there, just where Ruby felt her body squirm and her hips push upwards into Belle. "It said something rather fitting, for this moment."

Ruby turned, catching Belle's cheek in her palm and holding her there, sun catching her hair and creating a halo of wispy frizz around her face. "What is it?"

"I could spend my life in this sweet serenity," Belle hummed the tune as she spoke the words and Ruby kissed her in earnest.

Because they really could.

-

Sometimes, Ruby felt as though the moon was her lover. And that the moonlight coming through her bedroom window was its sweet embrace. She had been raised to fear the moon, to hate it and the times it brought with it.

Now Belle, with moonlight in her hair, pushed Ruby down onto the bed. She held her there in the moonlight, the full moonlight, and kissed her with a tenderness that Ruby could not explain.

The wolf in her longed to throw its head back, to howl and to take what was hers.

"Belle," Ruby gasped, her voice not quite sounding like herself. The moonlight was scaring her, making her want to curl up and hide. She wanted to howl at it, to go outside, to embrace the beast within her. "Belle, close the curtains."

Belle looked at her then, her eyes shining with something that Ruby could not place. "In this light you are beautiful."

The change started almost before she can stop it, and Ruby felt rather than heard the constriction in Belle's chest. She smelled of fear and of honey, and Ruby could not help herself but bury her face in Belle's hair. The beast wanted to be close to Belle and it was that thought, more so than anything else, that filled Ruby's still-aware human mind with fear.

The beast would kill Belle, Ruby had to get away.

"Don't let me change," she begged Belle, her body shifting even as she said so. She would kill Belle. The beast that Red had tried so desperately to deny as herself, and who Ruby would have rather forgotten would kill this woman that she’d come to love. “Please don’t let me change.”

Belle’s eyes were wide and full of fear, and Ruby pushed her away. She could feel her body start to move, start to change. Her spine popped painfully and she fell off the side of her bed onto the floor, knees screaming in pain as landed heavily on them. To shift into wolf form here, amidst a town full of people that she cared for, she should just die.

Pain ripped through her body, and Ruby felt as though all the air had been forced out of her lungs. She struggled for breath, her body shifting, her limbs changing, popping in and out of place. Her lips felt leaden and they were clumsy as she struggled to get the words out. “R-” she began, her hand that still looked relatively human reached out towards Belle. “Run…”

The wolf – the beast inside of her – its consciousness was slowly melding with her own, settling in like a thick haze around her. It was all instinct now, and the wolf was full of anger and rage. The images of the room flashed gray before its eyes. The smell of it was familiar, the lone human present smelled of salt and of safety.

The human’s cheeks were wet and the wolf paused, nose twitching as it stepped closer. The human should not be upset. The human was safe and protected.

The wolf whined low in its throat, taking a step forward towards the smell of fear and honey. The human should have run; the human should not have gone. The human was safe.

A tentative palm was extended, up and open. The wolf did not find it threatening and sniffed it, and then licked it.

The human reached out, and touched the wolf’s head, smoothing fur. Its cheeks were still wet, and the wolf did not understand. The human was safe – the human was mate. The human had no need to be afraid.

It was speaking now, and the wolf did not understand. Lips pressed to the top of the wolf’s head and Ruby collapsed backwards onto the floor, naked as the day she was born.

Belle had the good grace to look away as Ruby turned and lunged for the wastebasket. She reached into it, her shoulders shaking as she lost her lunch, and then her breakfast. Her stomach would not quiet, the wolf’s memories of Belle were vivid in her mind.

“I told you to run,” she finally got out, her voice hiccupping mid-sentence. “You could have _died_.”

Belle knelt next to Ruby and offered her a handkerchief, which Ruby took gratefully. She stared at Ruby for a long moment and then shook her head, hair falling across her face as she smiled ruefully. “I took a gamble on a hypothesis,” she confessed. “And I was right.”

Ruby didn’t say anything for a long time after that, and a feeling of love and contentment washed over her.

-

An entire future stretched out before them, and Belle’s hand felt warm in her own.

“I’m glad you took that gamble,” Ruby confessed some time later.

Belle smiled fondly at her from the other side of the diner booth. “I sometimes feel as though I have lived a thousand lifetimes, each one more adventuresome than the last. That moment was the most wonderfully terrifying moment in my life.”

When Ruby kissed Belle by the light of the moon later on that evening, the promise of a new future for them both was written. It was, as Ruby put it later in her journal, just another page in a tale as old as time.

**Author's Note:**

> huge thank you to Wickedpencils for the read-through.


End file.
